Trump Transition
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News Analysis
Donald Trump may not face a penalty for his conviction in the hush-money case, but he could still be the first felon to be president — and civil proceedings against him continue.
Maggie Haberman
As President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares for his inauguration, some of the legal cases that spilled out of Mr. Trump’s first presidency will follow him into the second.
Mr. Trump has signaled he plans to fight to postpone the scheduled sentencing for his criminal conviction, set by Justice Juan M. Merchan of the New York Supreme Court for Friday. In social media posts this weekend, Mr. Trump railed against the justice, saying that he should be disbarred.
Justice Merchan made clear that even if the sentencing were to go forward, he would not recommend any kind of prison sentence or home confinement. In announcing the sentencing date, the judge signaled he planned to give Mr. Trump an unconditional discharge in the case, allowing him to walk free but leaving him with a criminal record.
In May, Mr. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a 2016 election-year hush-money payment to a porn actress who said she had a sexual liaison with him.
But even absent any real penalties, the jury verdict is its own form of punishment for Mr. Trump, a measure of accountability that he remains eager to erase. An unconditional discharge — absent a higher court ruling throwing out the jury verdict — would still formally mark Mr. Trump as a felon, the first president to carry that status into office.
Asked about the cases continuing on during the presidency, Mr. Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, said in a statement that the public had given Mr. Trump a “mandate” that “demands an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and all of the witch hunts across the board.”
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